Andrew Carnegie

                                       

             Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland on November 25, 1835. He was brought in a very poor family, but raised to treasure reading and learning. In effect, he became one of the wealthiest men in business during his time. When he moved to America as a 13 year old, he got a job working on the railroad, in Pennsylvania, earning $1.20 a week. After many different positions with the railroad construction, he finally got promoted as superintendent. After about ten years, Carnegie discovered the steel industry and how financially good that business was. Soon enough, he had his own company, Carnegie Steel Company, that was very popular in America. It had strategies that made manufacturing steel much easier and transferring it the fastest. Andrew Carnegie, though raised in poverty, ended up one of the most successful men in America. Andrew Carnegie is an important role in American history because of his incredibly well prospering steel company. With his young life, full of poverty, then growing up to be one of the most successful men in America is a substancial importance and inspiration to many across the developing United States. On a side note, he created over 4,000 libraries and wrote a book, "The Gospel of Wealth" as well.

               
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/peopleevents/pande01.html
http://www.biography.com/people/andrew-carnegie-9238756

Transcontinental Railroad

Camille Stillwell, Henry Colvin, Casey Shannon and Caitlin Nichols

Life in the Camp

Railroad Workers

Dealing With Workers

Impacts of the Transcontinental Railroad

Lets Look at an Owner

Life in the Camp

 By: Caitlin Nichols





            

           The life on the side lines of the railroad constructers was no safe place. Their life style was improper and the men were always ready to move to their next temporary homes. The buildings were built of feeble wood, and were the opposite of luxurious. When the men weren't working on the railroad, they were gambling, drinking and playing games, such as russian roulette. There were modified dance halls, saloons and brothels. Unfortunately, the men were paid very little money and the authorities treated them with little respect or worth. Julesburg, a dead town in Colorado, was brought back to life, in 1867, for the brief time the men were constructing the railroad. Regrettably, once they finished and packed up their stuff, the town expired forever. The nickname these manufacturers received, after progressing through many towns, was Hell on Wheels, for always causing mayhem in the town, during their short stops.                                                                         

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/tcrr-hell/

           Louisa May Alcott, a survivor of the Civil War, was born on November 29, 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Her parents were Amos Bronson Alcott, Bronson for short, and Abigail May Alcott. She was raised with three sisters: Anna, Elizabeth, and Abigail Alcott. She is famous for her thirty plus novels she wrote. Her most known book is Little Women, about four young sisters, is now a major motion-picture event. Hospital Sketchers, a book full of the letters she wrote when she was a nurse in the Civil War in Washintgton D. C., is still timeless ever since it was published in 1863.
          When Louisa was just around the corner of being thirty years old, she decided she wanted to something adventurous and brave to happen in her life. To be a nurse in the war, you had to be under thirty, but after the Battle of the Bull Run in 1862, the hospitals were so desperate for nurses that they accepted Louisa's petition to help. “I love nursing and must let out my pent-up energy in some new way.” At first, she was just doing minor things, such as bandaging cuts and cooling foreheads with rags. But soon enough, she was assisting surgeons as they amputated legs, hands, etc., witnessing very gory, vivid wounds. 
          In her book, Hospital Sketches, based on her experiences in the hospital during the Civil War, Louisa May Alcott expresses how after working in the hospital over the months, her view of war had changed. She believed that the actual effect of war was not taking place on the battlefield, but rather in the rooms of the wounded people. That is where the essence of war happened. For many months, Louisa was suffering from nervous prostration, and on May 6, 1888, she died. If was a very big time of remorse for the Alcott family, because her father had just passed within weeks before her death.